


Momento Mori

by lucius_complex



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Death, Death Doula, Drama, End of life rituals, M/M, Sky Burial, Tibet, Why are you even surprised there's Character Death in my stories
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-22
Updated: 2017-06-24
Packaged: 2018-11-17 09:55:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11273103
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lucius_complex/pseuds/lucius_complex
Summary: Perhaps this was the wheel that Big Knife spoke about – the wheel that condemned men to endlessly grasp at truth only to have it snatched it away again, to begin anew with no memory left – there to fall or rise as they may, again and infinitely again.Harry gazed at the strings of prayer beads on his wrist. They seem to loop around in endless circles: each a world, self-contained. Spinning the same way, over and over, a snake eating its tail.Unescapable, unending infinity... unless you happened to be a Sky Priest.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

__

**MOMENTO MORI**

by Lucius Complex

 

 

 

 _Maybe all one can do is hope to end up with the right regrets_ —Arthur Miller

 

1

The portal they stepped out of smoked purple and red, a combination Harry had never seen before in all his years of traveling.

The smell that assaulted him was pungent and unfamiliar as well; traces of frankincense, earthliness, and multiple layers of unidentified herbs that veiled the air. Harry barely had the time to take it all in before Rai’s beefy hand, festooned with rings, slapped him on the back.

‘Glorious, isn’t it?’ For a fellow about to keel over any day now, Rai had surprising reserves of health and spirit. ‘Total sensory overload.’

‘Its certainly invigorating,’ Harry grinned back. Then he picked up his suitcase, turned around and almost collided into a cow with massive blue horns.

 ‘Sorry,’ Harry said ruefully. ‘First time in Kathmandu.’

The cow turned its baleful eyes on him before being herded away by a bejeweled boy with bright blue skin dripping gold from his shoulders and arms. Harry, all bemused, was herded the opposite direction as the bustling crowd caught up with him and carried him like a tide towards what he hoped was the exit.

‘Harry my boy, this trip is going to change your life,’ Rai shouted (or rather, coughed) over the din of foreign dialects, clattering ungulates and a startling amount of chattering monkey familiars. ‘This here is the heart of Shangri-la.’

‘It was generous of you to bring me along,’ Harry smiled at his sponsor in return.

Rai might be his client and contractor, but he was also someone he’d grown to liked, not just for the billionaire’s wildly philanthropic habits, but also for his warmth and wry humour in the face of certain death – notedly his own. With his client’s insides having rapidly been eaten by cancerous tumours over the last six months, the portly man had time between a week to four left of life. His man of affairs had sought Harry out a mere fortnight ago to explain what the billionaire had wanted, and two weeks later Harry found his bags packed and himself accompanying his new client all over England and Asia as the half-British, half-Tibetian Indian wizard made his goodbyes and put his affairs in order.

This was a bit of a first, and Harry had since been very bemused by his adventures  – although it wasn’t the first time he’d met his clients before death claimed them, it was certainly the first time he’d been brought along on _everything -_ meals, holidays, tearful goodbyes to random people, investment foreclosures, ect. Rai had even dragged him into a Swiss spa once, for Merlin’s sake.

In the business of death, one’s clients were usually not so very _vigorous,_ and Harry himself usually not so open to persuasion, but Rai, with his bald head and jolly girth, his fat whiskers and wide, belly jiggling laugh, had literally showed up at his doorstep on day and proceeded to charm the socks off him.

And so Harry followed, even when Rai announced that he had decided to meet his death in the Himalayan mountains where his ancestors were born, and would Harry be so kind as to make his death mask there when he finally died.

Harry found he hadn’t minded at all. After all, he’d already experienced Death for himself and knew that it was akin to a long journey somewhere. So it all made perfect sense, really. Nothing to it. 

And so Harry had packed his small backpack and told his landlord he’d probably be back within the week, and went off on his working holiday.

*

2

On day four it dawned on Harry that he probably wouldn’t be back by the end of the week.

From Kathmandu, it was a long and arduous trip up to the remote villages where the Sky Priests resides. Harry had been intrigued by the idea of a sky burial but unable to pry many details out of Rai aside from the most cursory of descriptions. Certainly the idea of being chopped to pieces and fed to vultures seemed a tad simplistic for Harry to accept. Before leaving London he’d pored through the scriptures in the libraries and firecalled Hermione for endless speculative conversations, but something about the whole thing eluded him. Why would an affluent, pleasure-seeking wizard like Rai wish to submit to such a ritual? And why would so barbaric a practice be lauded as sacred, its butchers (for Harry couldn’t see such a ‘priest’ as anything else) – respected as representatives of gods?

Harry couldn’t phantom it.

He didn’t have time to press his host with questions however, for they were soon winding through the streets of Kathmandu’s magical dwellings on rickety magic carpets - the dodgy kind of carpets with highly questionable safety standards operated by chattering, turbaned monkeys. Harry spent most of his time trying not to get airsick. By evening they had cleared the capital and was headed towards the mountains, at the foot of which their hired man of affairs abruptly informed Harry that from herein, he was not to use magic openly in public.

‘Well why not? How will we get up there without any magic?’

The guide looked Harry up and down with a bland indifference that surely had a stealthy amount of contempt thrown in. ‘Like everybody else who wish for Sky Burial, perdesi _sahib_ – on own two feet.’

And that was that.

They cheated of course: Harry especially, outrageously and unapologetically. The use of magic, unavoidable due to Rai’s poor health and frequent bouts of pain, was severely unpopular with the local helpers and had to be carried out mostly under the cover of the night - here it was that Harry discovered that the Tibetian Shamans were hostile to most western wizards, more so once it was discovered that the ‘perdesi foreigners’ intended to perform a Sky Burial, one of the most sacred acts in their culture. 

Their suspicious and silently accusing looks triggered an intense ire in Harry, and although he knew better than to take it so personally, it had also cut too close to long dormant memories.

‘Why do they react so hostilely to us?’

Rai shook his head and waved a hand ‘You see how humble they are. Its hard for such minds to think themselves of deserving of a Sky Burial; once the provenance of only the greatest kings and high priests. Foreigners who just march in, too big for their breeches and understanding little of the sacred rites-‘

‘You get hacked up and eaten by vultures,’ Harry said. ‘What’s so sacred about that?’

‘And that there my young friend, is precisely the sort of thing that the hostility is meant to protect,’ Rai pointed out. ‘But honey works better than vinegar no? So perhaps one day these simple folk need not be so defensive. But once we get to the village, the dissent will wear down; the Sky Priest there has given his consent to the rites, and his word there is the law.’

Harry scratched his head unhappily. ‘How did you get a Sky Priest to agree?’

‘I called in a favour,’ Rai wheezed. ‘From an old friend.’

Harry glanced at him. 'I had no idea you kept to closely in touch with your people.’

‘I didn’t,’ Rai’s voice was resinous with resignation. ‘That Sky Priest used to be a-‘ here he delicately broke off and cleared his throat. ‘You could say he was one of our people.’

That piqued Harry’s attention. ‘Your Sky Priest is a _wizard?’_

His fat, bald client actually _winked._ ‘In fact, I’m sure you’d recognise each other on sight.’

'Truly,' Harry’s jaw fell open. ‘You never told me that we were acquainted.’

‘Ah but you’re not,’ Rai waved an arm as Harry frowned. ‘Sky Priests are liberated from the circle of life. Like monks, they do not acknowledge their previous lives.’

‘Er. Sounds a bit irresponsible, yeah?’

The portly wizard shrugged. ‘Perhaps. Or perhaps, we are the irresponsible ones, stubbornly staying in the circle of endless attachments. Come, let us climb.’

*

With the minimal use magic, their entourage took four days of traveling and a good many Porters and shaggy Dzos to carry the profusion of luggage, equipment and sundry conveniences that Rai’s many fussy butlers felt he couldn’t do without – accoutrements amongst which, apparently included spiced wine, pomade wax for his bald head, and priceless rings for each finger, and ear jewellery that changed every day. By the time they reached the village – little more than a rocky shelf huddled against a small river on one side and a ruinous cliff-side on the other, Harry was nursing more aches and blisters in his body than he remembered picking up in the last ten years.

The villagers turned out en-force to meet them, and Rai happily bellowed his greetings in broken Nepali and threw sweetmeats to the children. Forbidden from casting warming charms, Harry hung back from the crowd, shivering too much from the wind to do more than burrow his back against the shaggy fur of a Dzos and attempt to remain standing; any curiosity he had having been completely oblivated by cold. 

After a good deal of gesturing and confused milling around, Harry finally found himself in a small yurt – sparse but cosy. To his surprise and pleasure he found that the villages had even prepared a large tub of hot water to soak in, something that surely had to be an extravagant luxury and almost certainly carried up for him by hand.  

Gratefully, he sank into the smoking water and waited for the feeling to return to his limbs and the heat to chase his brittle weariness away. He looked around, at the western beds and hot water flask, accouterments that such a simple, impoverished village like this must find foreign and unnecessary, bought up at great expense especially for their white-skinned guest.

Almost shuddering with graditude, Harry felt he was forced to admit that whoever Rai’s Sky Priest was, he was both compassionate and tactful, and Harry couldn’t wait to meet him. 

*  


	2. Chapter 2

__

**MOMENTO MORI**

by Lucius Complex

 

2

Night time found them wolfing down potato stew and escorted into a small, cramped tent a short distance from the village proper, which Harry found intriguing and one of Rai’s sycophants explained as the ‘proper distance of respect ’ that had to be kept between a Sky Priest and his flock. Priesthood, it would appear in Asia, did not have the sycophantic social responsibilities the west took for granted. Instead of making themselves readily avalible to all they held themselves a distance away, closed off and aloof. A Sky Priest in fact, would seldom speak directly to his flock, which Harry had found bizarre to the extreme. Instead, they used intercessors.

Since he was an auxiliary guest Harry settled into an unobtrusive mat by the side of the tent, avoiding the bustling villagers and gratefully receiving one the steaming bowls of butter tea being handed out. Then he waited, huddled under his pashmina and as many layers of clothes he had been able to squeeze into. 

Rai, who had his minions unfold an elegant, if ostentatious bed of cushions to support his great weight, was wrapped up like a dumpling in multiple layers of fleece, and he reminded Harry of a fat, slightly rediculous caterpillar who had spent the summer gouging itself out and was now in the process of building a cocoon. But then, that was why there were all here - to meet the mysterious Sky Priest that would be would be instrumental in transforming Harry’s client into a butterfly.

Harry found his attention frequently caught by the many complicated inscriptions within the tent. On the exact center of the roof was a large painted eye, similar to one he had encountered in Turkey, blinking down at him. Rai’s sharp eyes caught him examining the Indon-Aryan script and symbols of birds and (hopefully only animal) bones that lined the pillars and door frame.

‘You studied mysticism did you not? At Hogwarts.’

‘Not as such, no,’ Harry replied. ‘We only had a cursory look at best: touch and go, really. It’s a shame, because it leaves British wizards stuck with the thinking that there’s nothing better out there than what we already have.’

‘Its very different here,’ Rai explained. ‘Western mysticism is dualistic. It maintains a separation between self and that which is divine. Much cleaner. Over here-‘

‘You have living gods.’. 

‘You could say we have a very different _definition_ of god. The separation is not so wide; and the- ‘ Rai paused to grab at the words. ,

‘Elevation?’

‘So so! Yes, precisely. The _elevation_ between god and man is… not so high. ‘God’ is not divorced from man, nor is godhood an impossible attainment. A man may be a god, should he wish it. You have an intuitive sense of it, my friend. That is why you do what you do. Because you attune to how close all our worlds really are.’ Rai nodded vigorously, earrings and bangles jangling. ‘How they move within us. And we move within _them.’_

Harry laughed softy. ‘I don’t understand half as much as you think.’

‘You _do_ understand,’ Rai scoffed, ‘you just don’t know of your own understanding.’ Then he suddenly broke into a mad grin. ‘Try not to gape too much at the Sky Priest when he arrives; he is our earthly representation of Death walking amongst us, and the villagers worship him.’

Harry endeavored not to roll his eyes. ‘I’ll try not to swoon on sight.’

‘Just keep your jaw off the ground,’ Rai winked with a smirk, but before Harry would frown and press him for details a sudden hush fell over the room and the energy in the room changed dramatically, the very air suddenly seeming to grow thin as the serving boys scuttled to the back of the tent and fell to their knees.

Harry took a deep breath and forced his spine to relax. The Sky Priest was just a human masquerading as an ideal, little more. He’s faced death in battle as a youth, and he faced death every day as a career choice. There’s no possible way he'd be afraid of a mere _mascot_ of death. And so Harry exhaled and waited. But nothing could had prepared him for the shock of seeing the man that drew aside the curtains of the tent – the tall, powerful shoulders and jarringly pale hair; the cold, mercurial eyes. 

The stern thin lips.

Rai’s Sky Priest was a Malfoy.

More pointedly, it was _Lucius_ Malfoy.

*

Lucius was accompanied by another equally tall man with black, violent eyes and a severe jaw who wore a faded purple smock, and Harry’s intuition immediately picked him out as a man with a ferocious past, not least because of the scars on his face and the large machete he wore in plain sight.

Lucius himself wore no shirt, only greying trousers and a long length of fraying shawl wrapped twice around his shoulders which Harry suspect functions as a makeshift hood and little else. That the shawl was a bright Griffindor red, or  once used to be before sun and grime baked it into a splotchy, indiscernibly brick-and-sand colour - bemused Harry more than it should.

Malfoy's face and chest were rough, weathered and burnt by a life lived out of doors. Only his eyes stood out, blue and piercing like cold steel in the smoky darkness of the hut. Standing there, Harry thought that for a man who had been living amongst the hills for a decade, those eyes made Lucius look more foreign, _alien_ , than the rest of Rai’s foreign _perdes_ i entourage put together.

Aside from a cursory sweep of carefully neutral eyes as he walked in, the ex-Death Eater ignored Harry. Of course.

Once the Sky Priest and his companion were seated crossed legged and straight-backed on the carpets, the rituals began. Big Knife – for that was the name Harry decided to give to Lucius’ ferocious guard dog, barked out a series of litanies that a thin, scholarly looking agent in Rai’s employment answered with another series of litanies, with the occasional answer from Rai himself.

Harry had no idea of the significance of the proceeding, but he could vaguely hazard that they seemed to be triaging each other in some sort of ancient dialect. The procedure seemed to be a largely ceremonial, if a very strict one from how tense and somber the proceedings went along. It seemed to be a time of testing – even Rai’s face had drained of blood as the conversation progressed. And whatever was being said to him, it took an impact, for Harry could see the laughing man aging before him, his shoulders heaving and occasional breaking into tremors, and repeatedly wiping or wringing his hands.

Presently he grew angry – whatever such a rite served to preserve, surely it does not justify so much emotional distress to a sick man.

Finally Harry opened his mouth to interfere – but before his accusations could leave him Lucius raised a hand, and just like that, the mysterious interrogation ceased. Everyone drew breaths, and the air seemed to circulate in the room once again.

‘You are deemed worthy of burial.’ Big Knife announced finally in English in a voice as guttural as ashes that made Harry lift his head with interest. It was like watching an angry bear performing poodle tricks. Big Knife didn’t look like a man from a city, and the villages spoke nothing but their traditional dialects.

Rai recovered quickly, and spoke irrepressibly. ‘Thank Merlin, because I would have thrown myself off a cliff rather than make that impossible journey down again.’

His words, innocuous as they are, seemed to have meant something else entirely that eluded Harry, for after that the atmosphere became a lot more casual, with comings and goings and sweetmeats and fresh bowls of butter tea handed around.

The villages chattered around them; children begged for sweets from Rai and dared each other to approach Harry, intrigued by his foreign looks. Aside from giving Lucius a wide berth and lowering their heads in respect when crossing in front of him, they skittered around fearless of repercussions.  Harry, who vividly remembered Draco’s tension and rigidity the few times he had spotted him around his father, took the look of fearless curiosity on the children as a good sign, and was glad for it.

By some unspoken agreement, the conversation drifted into talking about the details of erecting the sky burial platform. From what little Harry could eavesdrop, it would be a narrow platform constructed atop the ledge or ridge of a cliff, as high up the mountains as they could possibly make it.

Since he was not directly involved with the rites of the sky burial, Harry devoted his attentions to smiling brightly at the children who tried to approach him and wished that magic had not been forbidden so he could amuse them with harmless tricks.

He watched Rai and his assistants palaver rapidly through and aft with logistics and measurements; everyone seemed to have forgotten Harry’s presence in the room or the purpose for which he was bought. The more they spoke the more concerned Harry became about discharging his own duties.

Finally he lifted up a hand. ‘I’m sorry. Sorry, pardon-’

The entire room fell silent at his intrusion, making Harry want to shrink back under his shawl again, but he had been brought here for a reason, so he forced himself to speak.

‘Will the platform be large enough for all of us?’ he finally spoke up, ‘-and my equipment?’

At this, all eyes swiveled towards him, as if noticing Harry’s presence for the first time, and he tried not to visibly shrink under the disapproving stares of the Sky Priest and his shaman. From Lucius Malfoy's face Harry could see no trace of recognition or acknowledgement.

Rai cleared his throat noisily. ‘Of course there’ll be space!’

‘Who is this?’ Big Knife growled.

‘Harry here is my death mask maker. Go on an introduce yourself, my boy.’

The look Big Knife gave him was derogatory at best. ‘ _All_ Deaths belongs to Sky Priest,’ he growled, face gesturing at Lucius, before turning to glare down at Harry. ‘Not touch for mask maker. Not touch for human hands. Not touch for dhami-jhankris.’

‘ _Of_ course I’ll need to be there,’ Harry replied, keeping his voice reasonable although he had no idea what a dhami-jhankris was. ‘We’re both hired by Rai to see to his last rites, so we need to work together-‘

‘ _Sky Priest_  must decide best work, not human man,’ the shaman growled. Harry tried not to roll his eyes - it appears Lucius had replaced Crabbe and Goyle senior with another loyal guard dog. Only this time he’d done well for himself and found someone more dangerous and devoted than the rest of his previous honour guard put together.

‘Harry won't get in your way at all. Just look at him, he’ll _hardly_ take up any space-’

Big Knife growled. ‘Death _work is_  no work for living man.’

‘This is not just a _mere_ man, this is Harry Potter whom I told you about. He of the _eagle’s_ destiny.’

Big Knife frowned at Harry. ‘This he?’

‘Yes.’

Big Knife looked at him with the fierce accessing eyes of a bird of prey. Then he slapped his hands on his thighs.

‘Still humans are forbidden on altar of sacred sky.’

If anybody else found it strange that Big Knife referred to Lucius as if he was no longer human, they didn’t comment on it. The Sky Priest himself remained silent whilst they argued as he had the entire night, eyes bright and clear as white-hot stars.

Emulating him, Harry fell silent again as the argument resumed around him.

 ‘I’m sure we can work something out. Money is no object.’

‘Money _is_ object. We do not want object. Do not want perdesi  _foreigners-‘_

‘What I mean to say is-‘

'It is impossible ask,' Big Knife barked. 'Impossible.'

‘We could widen the burial platform to accommodate Harry; for everything else, we’d have magic.’

‘-sacred sky altar is _not mere platform-'_

Harry closed his eyes to shut out their raising volume, wondering if he'd just made the whole trip here for nothing.  Perhaps he'l try to find a guide who would be willing to take him down tomorrow.

_‘No.’_

When Lucius finally opened his mouth, he spoke with the halting, slightly hoarse tones of a man who was used to being economical with his words, and his voice almost made Harry jump.

For a moment, no one spoke, and the tent was silent as the grave. 

‘No need for magic,’ Lucius finally said. His tone was softer, far lower than Harry expected from the man. 

‘But you’re a wizard too! Or used to be,’ Rai hastily amended as the Sky Priest went flinty faced. ‘Surely you can’t object -‘

Lucius shook his head again, adamant. ‘No need of magic.’

‘Sky burial only. Simple. Need Sky Priest. No need  _object._ ‘ Big Knife insisted, nudging his face at Harry's direction. Was he being referred to as a thing? It sounded vaguely insulting.

Lucius shook his head again but didn't speak, and Harry watched with sympathy as Rai's face fell, and then gamely attempted to rouse itself. 

‘Good thing I didn’t bring my 4-piece string quartet like I wanted, eh? Or maybe I should have stared by asking for a horse, and maybe then you’d have allowed this wee slip of a boy hero to come on.’

‘Bamboo is lighter than a bird, and stronger than steel. But no horse, no human. No living things on altar.’

‘Come, come Lucius,’ Rai said jovially. ‘You won’t deny a man his dying wish, will you?’ His good humor, however, faltered when Lucius simply looked at him. And then he stood up.

Rai begin to splutter as he watched his chances at victory diminish.  ‘You can’t deny a wizard his right. A sky burial and a wizarding ritual are both in my heritage. ’

The Sky Priest didn’t turn around as drew the tent curtains and spoke his final piece.

‘No magic. You choose.’

And then Lucius was gone.

*


	3. Chapter 3

__

**MOMENTO MORI**

by Lucius Complex

 

3

The following morning Harry woke up to a breakfast of hot bread and boiled yak’s milk, and having no obligations, decided to explore the small village environ alone.

Instead he found himself escorted through a series of alleys and lanes by a group of children who pulled his hands and laughed at his funny accent and took turns trying on his glasses. Harry luxuriated in their laughter and innocence, and promised to help them steal Rai’s sweetmeats when he wasn’t looking. In return, they inducted him into their secret hideouts and taught him how to play Tiger Chess.

As it turns out, Harry was pretty bad at Tiger Chess, even against seven year olds.

It turned out to be one of the best mornings he’d experienced in recent memory, at least until he turned a corner, laughing, and bumped in the Sky Priest. 

But rather than shock or dismay, what his brain choosed to occupy itself with, rather unfortunately in Harry’s opinion, a healthy appreciation of Lucius Malfoy’s bare chest.

The Sky Priest was again shirtless, displaying a clear disregard for proprietary or the substantial risk of poking Harry’s eye out with a brown nipple, seeing how much taller the man remained even with so many years between them for Harry to _not_ experience that much hoped for growth sprout.

Thus he found himself gaping again at Lucius with his mind going blank, cataloging inane details; such as the brick-red shawl that awaited use, wrapped around a thick and very solid waist. The fact that this once fastidious, aristocratic death eater was wearing tooled leather slippers that bared his feet, revealing brown, dirt caked toes-

It was-

Well. It was most certainly surreal.

He should be disgusted. He should be swallowing anger, fear and violence. Most of all he should not be hesitating to look a Malfoy full in the face. Yet he could barely look into those accessing steel-grey eyes.

Because the thing that really threw Harry off and rendered him incapable for action, what was far more telling than his own reaction, had been the reaction of the children around him – the way they ran towards Lucius with wide eager smiles before faltering, suddenly remembering themselves and the deference that the village adults had clearly brought them up to display in front of a Sky Priest. Harry tried to take it all in; the children’s shy smiles as the Sky Pries glanced in passing at them; the way they nudged each other and followed him with their eyes.

They did not fear Lucius. Instead, they adored him.

Not with an adult’s admiration, for children had a very fearless, autonomous idea of the word, as long as they were confident of the fact that you formed part of their natural shelter. 

Whilst he had stood stupefied, Harry noticed with no small amount of outrage that the Sky Priest had merely skirted around him and moved on, as if he'd merely been an inconvenient bolder to dart around. Lucius in fact, hadn’t actually spoken a word.

What a bizarre and topsy-turvy world this little village in the sky was turning out to be.

After that, he could only gaze bemusedly as the children captured his wrist again and pulled him along, following the calm, measured footsteps of the Sky Priest as he made his way to god-knows where.

*

Rai and his entourage of lackeys caught up with Harry beside the tiny stream, beyond which stood straight, proud lines of bamboo being planted and harvested by the villagers. Harry controlled his urge to immediately roll up his sleeves and pitch in to help after Rai placed a restraining hand on his shoulder.

‘Things are done differently here.’

‘No kidding. Harry grunted, and managed to raise a challenging eyebrow at the portly man. ‘You’ve been keeping a lot of secrets from me.’

Rather than look sheepish his host grinned irascibly down at Harry. ‘Lucius’ place in the village was never a secret, and therefore not mine to keep. But I did enjoy the look on your face.’

Exhaling irritably, Harry shook his head and looked away. Admittedly he itched with questions, but still, if things were finally beginning to go right, Harry wasn’t about to interrupt.

For long moments he simply took in the serene faces of the villages as they planted, harvested and counted; awed by the harmonious nature of their labor. There was a profound beauty to be witnessed in their industry; where each person slipped into their role with a composure, a grace that belied their humble nature of their work.

Harry tried to look for the tell-tale signs of hubris: of people surveying others with expressions of judgments or criticisms on their faces. Of dissatisfaction or envy; or the signs of time being wasted; a life being wasted. There were none.

The simple purity of it made his heart ache with the knowledge that none of this would last. Not with someone like Malfoy there, biding his time. The desire to protect, even without permission, flared hot in his chest.

‘There is also a lot of wisdom in this village,’ Rai’s voice murmured, interrupting his thoughts.

‘There is also a lot of innocence in this village.’ Harry turned to face his host, ignoring the lack of proprietary. ‘Does the people here know of Lucius’ past? What he’s done? Because they should.’

‘They know he means them good rather than ill, and that is all they are concerned with knowing.’

‘He’s a Death Eater,’ Harry snorted, ‘Preying on their ingrained hospitality.’

His host took his time to reply. ‘I’ve always found... that there are some places out there that are so honest – who’s people have so little to hide, that there is nothing there for greed or deceit to take hold off. This village is one such place. You can feel it, and so can I. There are no Death Eaters here, Harry. Merely your memories, carried up from large gray cities... but those cities are now continents away.‘ Rai took a deep breath of the fresh, cool air and grinned. ‘This is as good a place as any to cast them out, no?’

Harry smiled tightly at him out of the corner of his eye. ‘Cast out the most important lesson of my generation?’

‘You’ve done your job, you've been a hero, a saviour, and you’ve been a good Gryffindor. You don’t need those titles anymore, do you?’ And then the fat man walked away whistling, leaving Harry feeling bereft and confused.

Alone, his eyes unerringly sought out the Sky Priest again, watching him accept a mouthful of water from a lady with an urn. It was immensely disquieting, so see the woman’s unaccountable joy at the serving Lucius.

Surely it was wrong, and yet-

Harry looked. Children crept around, observing the older members of their families work and whispering amongst themselves. It was clear that the older members of the villages were unhappy with the children’s presence, for every now and then a long scolding would blister the air when they drew too close with their games. But for the most part, the adults enjoyed watching the children, and the children enjoyed watching the adults. They especially enjoyed watching Lucius work, although he ignored them. Harry was frequently treated to the bemusing spectacle of watching Big Knife herd them away from his precious priest, barking at the children like a jealous and possessive guard. The workers occasionally broke into song, carrying strains of a music so ancient by Harry’s ears it felt like they must have first been sung when the both sky and mountain were young. 

He found the tableau before him immensely disturbing. It was too picture perfect, and there was bound to be rot behind it, if only he could find it.

For now, however, Harry had to play the gracious guest and keep his eyes and ears peeled; a man like Malfoy would find a way to domineer and crush the life out of these people eventually: it was simply his way. The villagers are probably being unwittingly roped into some nefarious scheme, and Harry would find it and root it out and show them what he knew all along – that there is always evil in the world, and that is why people like him had to come into being.

He was a little disconcerted when the objects of his thoughts suddenly appeared before him however. Before he could speak, the Sky Priest opened his mouth first.

‘Would you like to see what it is for?’

Lucius’ tones were dulcet and rounded this time; his voice seemed to have recovered from yesterday’s hoarse, unused quality. Perhaps that night he had been just as surprised as Harry had been. The thought was of course, preposterous. Malfoy was a schemer, a toady and a flatterer, his forked tongue was his sharpest weapon; any ideas of restraint clearly temporary in service of a more dastardly purpose. Harry wants to say no, wants to be rude and hostile. Nobody could go from hedonistic villain to ascetic in the space of ten years, and Harry wanted to call his bluff.

Instead he finds himself nodding slowly. Not trusting himself to speak.

‘Follow me,’ the Sky Priest said, and proceeded to walk them both past the fields and onto higher, elevated grounds. As they walked Lucius pointed at a modest clearing of small, thick-walled buildings nestled against a hill.

‘Adobe houses. Warm in winter, cool in summer. Impervious to earthquakes, lasts forever.’

Unspoken, Harry heard the words ‘no magic’, which he filed away for later.

They walked a goodly portion of the hour, climbing steadily higher until Lucius reached a small sandy shelf huddled against a cliff with bits of sparse vegetation clinging to it. The view was breathtaking, once Harry recovered sufficient breath to appreciate it.

The inhabited hills were planted with vegetables and bamboo, lines of bright green terraces undulating around the mountainside like an abstract green wave. Harry watched the swatches of bamboo sway gently in the wind, and suddenly knew.

‘You initiated this planting.’

‘Yes.’

‘Bamboo is not a tree native to the land.’

The Sky Priest nodded. ‘We intend to replace structures that required concrete and steel with materials grown from the land.’

Harry folded his arms as he tried to measure how far the planting as gone ‘You intend to discourage the trading ties this village has with her sister cities?’

‘I wouldn’t use that word-’ 

‘You encourage their isolation-’

Lucius’s nostrils flared, clearly unused to being challenged. ‘I encourage their _self-sufficiency.’_

Harry scoffed. ‘The better to control them.’

The Sky Priest rounded up on him, solid and imposing. ‘No. The better to _free_ them from control.’

Harry stared at the man before him, resentful and bewildered, and if he was to be totally honest, perhaps slipping a fair bit in control. ‘Malfoy, why are you here, really? What gives you the right to come here, to this space and these people, after what you’ve done?’

Lucius raised a sharp eyebrow at him. ‘You come to _my_ village, and demand to know _my_ intentions? Perhaps I should be wary of yours, Mister Potter; after all, you’ve proven time and again to be the trouble-making sort.’

Caught by surprised, Harry blustered. ‘‘We both know who and what you really are underneath these robes, and they go beyond any _mere_ definition of trouble, _monster_.’

Instead of outrage, the ex-Death Eater acquired an expression of almost mild pity. ‘You have not been here long enough to see what the land here will do to you, Mister Potter. If anything, I suspect it shall be great fun to observe.’

*


End file.
